As a bit of background, I went with TXCraig's sourdough formulation with a few changes: 1) different sourdough culture, 2) no stretch and fold as I had a new mixer I wanted to play with. 24 hours bulk @ 65C, followed by 28 hours in balls also at 65(ish).

100% Caputo 0062% water3% salt1.3% culture

The dough was good. Lovely crust with a great taste and a gorgeous cross between crispy, chewy and fluffy which is exactly what I want. I will be working with this one again. I think it might even be my "go to" dough from here on. Thanks Craig.

So. Fired up the lil Weber with lumpwood and left if for 40 minutes to get up to temp.

Some pie pictures below. My shaping skills still need much improvement - as do my rotation in the oven skills to keep things even. But things are getting better. I think the reason most of the pies look squarish is that my dough containers are square and the dough seems to have a memory of that shape and adjusts itself back to that shape once I leave it on the peel....

First pie off was a lovely fennel salami (all of them were SanMarzano sauce and fresh organic Buffalo Mozz BTW)Second was gorgeous fresh parma ham and gorgonzola dolce (in addition to the mozz)Third up is what seems to be becoming my signature (or at least what the kids want the most), crispy duck, hoi sin sauce, scallions...Plus an upskirt....Then some more - various beautiful artisan salamis and cheeses.And finally a "use it up" pie with schiacchiatta (fantastic) and partial pineapple for my middle kid. It was awesome with pineapple BTW....

Anyway. I think I am beginning to get the Weber dialled in. More practice on dough, temperature and pie management for sure.

After 2 hours, the stone was still measuring about 750F - so a good long cook on a single load of lumpwood charcoal. Maybe 2Kgs used, so about £2.00 here.

Seems like they've done all the work of modding the oven... now all you have to do is find a used grill the same size, cut a hole in the bottom and mount your propane burner. Drop the nifty gadget on it and away you go.

I think it could use some work on the underside of the dome - not enough air turbulence. Needs some vanes to push the air down.

Seems like they've done all the work of modding the oven... now all you have to do is find a used grill the same size, cut a hole in the bottom and mount your propane burner. Drop the nifty gadget on it and away you go.

I think it could use some work on the underside of the dome - not enough air turbulence. Needs some vanes to push the air down.

Why not throw the burner in the one he already has?

adm, did you time any of the bakes on this last go 'round? Pie's are looking much better...

I didn't really time these - but they were all in the three to four minute or so range. That seems acceptable to me - gives me time to get a bite of the pizza I just cooked before I need to go back and turn the one thats currently on the grill.

I am happy using charcoal (have always preferred wood/charcoal to gas) with this although I do have a big ass propane burner that I use for boiling big vats of beer, and it could almost certainly be made to fit pretty easily....but...nah. Don't want to butcher the grill at this point.

Good point on baffles for the lid though. I might have a think about how to try that...

Just my 2c. But that Chadwick oven is junk. I can't believe he is getting rich off of this nonsense. And wrapping chrome around an inefficient oven won't make it bake any better. Chadwick oven, give me break. Give me an MPO anyday!

I'm glad you guys are happy with your weber charcoal pizza oven. You'd get better results making an LBE IMO. You can have controlled and constant heat for as long as you have propane pumping through it. That means you aren't limited to one batch of charcoal briquettes.

On a typical LBE and a 5 gallon propane tank you will typically get 15+ baking sessions, baking 3-4 pies back to back with a 20minute heat up (each time) to get 650F+. Sure you can reach 800F+ on the LBE but I'm not sure it's a balanced bake at those temps. YMMV. So on one tank, baking pies continuously back to back...well that equals A LOT of pies.

Sure the weber charcoal oven works, but how well does it work? How even is the heat distribution top and bottom and how efficient is it....compared to the LBE? How many pies can you bake with one load of coals? How easy is it to refill the coals? Do you have to take the oven apart and handle the hots stone to do this?

I'm glad you guys are happy with your weber charcoal pizza oven. You'd get better results making an LBE IMO. You can have controlled and constant heat for as long as you have propane pumping through it. That means you aren't limited to one batch of charcoal briquettes.

On a typical LBE and a 5 gallon propane tank you will typically get 15+ baking sessions, baking 3-4 pies back to back with a 20minute heat up (each time) to get 650F+. Sure you can reach 800F+ on the LBE but I'm not sure it's a balanced bake at those temps. YMMV. So on one tank, baking pies continuously back to back...well that equals A LOT of pies.

Sure the weber charcoal oven works, but how well does it work? How even is the heat distribution top and bottom and how efficient is it....compared to the LBE? How many pies can you bake with one load of coals? How easy is it to refill the coals? Do you have to take the oven apart and handle the hots stone to do this?

Well...what I can tell you is that I have baked 8 pies on a single load of lumpwood charcoal and could have done more. I don't know how many more though - probably not many. I have no idea about how even the heat distribution is. But it seems to work.

To refill the charcoal, you just lift the entire top piece of the oven off and dump in more charcoal. I haven't needed to do this yet as I have only ever needed to feed 6 people with this. However, it would take around a minute or so to lift the oven off, fill the grill with more coal and then put the lid back on. It would be hot, so you need a good thick pair of gloves - but then if you are cooking with charcoal you probably have these already.

I am sure propane is much more controllable and probably more efficient too. Still, the Weber oven works for me and makes pizza that my family love. It's fairly low cost, is freely available in Europe and requires no modifications to anything. Now - for some people who love tinkering (like me), that may be a bad thing but for the vast majority of the backyard grillers in Europe, it will work to cook decent pizza!

Learning how to make decent pizza itself is a whole different matter though!

I'll bet you could make some even better pies on that grill if you loose the NP dough and go with something better suited for the Weber heat output.

Thanks Bob, I hadn't thought of that, but it's definitely a good idea to experiment.

What would you recommend, bearing in mind that I like a thin and fairly crispy pie with a nice puffed cornice.

I do have a half sack of Caputo 00 left - so a blend might be the way to go until that is used up. Having said that, I love the extensibility of the 00 based dough.

Do you know if a different make of 00 flour would be more suitable - is it only the Caputo 00 that has trouble browning at lower temperatures? I am in the UK, so have access to many different types of flour - but certainly not the same brands as you get in the US.

Thanks Bob, I hadn't thought of that, but it's definitely a good idea to experiment.

What would you recommend, bearing in mind that I like a thin and fairly crispy pie with a nice puffed cornice.

I do have a half sack of Caputo 00 left - so a blend might be the way to go until that is used up. Having said that, I love the extensibility of the 00 based dough.

Do you know if a different make of 00 flour would be more suitable - is it only the Caputo 00 that has trouble browning at lower temperatures? I am in the UK, so have access to many different types of flour - but certainly not the same brands as you get in the US.

Cheers,

Alasdair

There are many great experimenters here but I believe member Chau has been the most prolific and his stuff is always awesome work.

Well...what I can tell you is that I have baked 8 pies on a single load of lumpwood charcoal and could have done more. I don't know how many more though - probably not many. I have no idea about how even the heat distribution is. But it seems to work.

Good enough for me. I want you to know that I wasn't trashing your oven. Yes it will bake pizza. Does it have to be a perfect oven with perfect heat distribution? NO. Im not sure many ovens are. As long as it bakes pizza that you enjoy with your family, then it's served it's purpose. Bringing people together for pizza and fellowship.

And 8-10 pies is sufficient for a small gathering, so it doesn't sound like you would need to refill the charcoal during a typical bake. I was just making the point of liquid propane vs charcoal in the weber ovens.

It's fairly low cost, is freely available in Europe and requires no modifications to anything.

This is a good point between the two. For someone who doesn't have tools, the time, know how, or motivation to modify a weber charcoal oven, this would be a good alternative.

Learning how to make decent pizza itself is a whole different matter though!

Yes very true. You could have the best pizza oven in the world but if you don't know how to make the dough, then what good is the oven?

If you are interested in blending caputo with HG flour, I've done a lot of those with good results. A good blend I've used is 75% 00 and 25% HG. You can stick with the ischia starter if you've had good luck with it. Beer isn't popular on the forum in the dough, but it doesn't mean you won't like it. Nothing wrong with experimenting. How else do we learn? Depending on how much top heat you are getting, sugar may or may not help. Sugar will promote browning, so if you need more crust browning, a small % of sugar is not a bad idea. I would start with 1-2% and see how you like it.

Anyways, good luck with the oven and do post up some more pies. We love pictures here.

I have just finished viewing (with deep envy and serious hunger pangs) many of your gorgeous pie photos and extremely detailed descriptions. I have learned a lot and will no doubt learn more from your posts.

I will definitely try blending the Caputo with HG as the first step. Change one thing at a time and record the results is my motto. I used to be an engineer....

I am beginning the long process of building a WFO (firebrick, Pompeii dome) as the centrepiece of an outside kitchen, so the Weber is a stopgap (but fun) measure. I might try modding that too (was busy taking measurements of my big ass propane burner today) at some point in the future, but for now I will stick with charcoal because I love the artisanal purity of it.

The WFO will be more general purpose than just pizza, hence the Pompeii dome profile rather than the Neapolitan. I'm sure it will cook good Pizza though.

I might mess around with adding some baffles to the lid of the Weber to see if that makes any difference. Thinking about it thermodynamically, it's almost certainly a pretty laminar airflow over the top of the pizza and maybe adding some turbulence might be a good thing. I also thought about adding a second stone in the lid. So much for me saying I wasn't going to hack it.....

Anyway. I think at the end of the day I managed to hijack Henrik's thread (although he hasn't been back for a while to update his results), so I think it's probably time for me to start my own pizza thread. Not sure quite where to put it as I am not sure exactly what style I am working to - probably somewhere between Neopolitan and New York with an Artisanal leaning.

Who knows? All i know is that the journey will be fun and involve many, many punishing miles up hills on my bicycle to work off the calories!

For a while there I was really gung ho about pizza and doing many experiments. I am just one of the many members here who chose to document a lot of what I did back then. If you look, there are lots of very active members on this board making every style of pizza known to man. There is such a wealth of pizza knowledge on this forum. As you, I also benefit greatly from everyone's work. I can always learn something new from any thread, whether I want to or not. I hope that you continue to document what you are doing with your new oven. As long as you are having fun, which it sounds like, and there are friends to enjoy your pizza, then you are successful. We are all here for the same reason, a journey to better pizza and pizza nirvana. I myself, still feel like a beginner many days and struggle just the same. I'm not kidding.

Yes, tinker and mod the oven if you have to. If you are passionate about pizza, and it sounds like you are, you will find one way or another to keep tweaking and get better. I'm very excited to hear that there will be a wfo in your future. No matter what oven you end up with, you'll have fun learning how to get the most out of it. But let me just say that if you think that you may end up doing mostly NP pizza, then please do get a low dome oven. You'll find a way to make it work for the other foods you want to make in it. It will just be easier. Trust me. But if NP isn't your thing, then any oven will do. Having a low dome oven will just make doing NP easier.

As far as hijacking a thread, I am guilty of that many times. It is common on this forum, so don't worry about it too much. The mods will move things around if they need to.

Nice looking unit, very space ship chic, imho. Hope you can dial it in. Temps can be improved with lump charcoal and some sort of blower. That will kick it up a lot, so you need to be able to control the blower's output. For the potatoes, anything that takes longer to cook, I'd par-cook (par-cook = partially cook) ahead of topping the pizza. I will do this for raw sausages that go on 3 to 4 minute pizzas, even though I'm hitting 700F plus on my Weber (using KettlePizza insert). Anything that takes a bit to cook, will likely need some help ahead of time. Things that cook fast or only need to come up to temp for mouth feel, such as shrimp or finished sausages like pepperoni, salami, sliced ham - I'll put them on straight from the package.

Hope you hang in there with it and get it sorted out. It is a very stylish unit.

bama bbq

So... I could get the Kettle Pizza Deluxe kit to sit atop my Weber Kettle which includes a stone and peel delivered direct from the Kettle Pizza site via FedEx Home Delivery for $197.40. Same kit is $215.04 thru Amazon delivered (I am not Prime).

However, I am not thrilled with the design: 1) The lid sits atop the Kettle Pizza ring and is therefor too high allowing all the heat to ride up there. 2) The stone sits on the grate so it is directly heated by the charcoal/wood which can cook the bottom faster that the top. 3) The heat/smoke travels all around the stone not directing heat over the pie to cook the top.

Or... I could get a Weber Original Charcoal Pizza Oven (Weber Part No 6520) from Amazon.de (German) and have it delivered UPS for $235.09.

I like the design much better: 1) The lid is low directing heat over the pie. 2) the stone sits on a ledge making it flush with the oven allowing a peel to easily get under the pie. 3) The stone is protected from direct heat by a "bowl" built into the oven which should allow the top to "catch up" to the heat on the stone. 4) Vents in the rear of the oven direct heat/smoke over the pie and under the stone from one place. It's very sturdy, well built porcelain enamel design.

To me, it's worth the $20.05 - $37.69 to buy Weber's design (though without a peel). The actual oven cost $170 once the exchange rate is applied which I believe is about $20 more than the price offered in the North and Northwest test markets but... shipping was killer. This thing is heavy and it went thru three countries to get here.

The worst part: it costs more than the grill it sits on (including all modifications I added). The best part: SWMBO agreed so...

I ordered the 9th, it shipped from Milan Italy on the 11th, went thru Koeln Germany (that's what UPS called the town of Köln I guess = Cologne in English), went thru Louisville and Montgomery, and delivered here to Huntspatch the 15th.

I am sorry to say that I agree. A waste of time when there are many other products out there that works "out of the box".

I have owned this one for two years. And it doesn't give better results than adding a stone to your normal kettle. Bottom burns and there is not enough heat from the top.

I have been thinking about adding a steel plate in the "dome" so that at least some heat is reflected. But I probably won't since I am not really ready to spend more time fiddling with this contraption.